463: Why Life Really Begins at 40. Mark Batterson on The Danger of Half-Present Living, Delayed Obedience, and Why We Need to Fall in Love with Gradual Progress

There’s a way to move through your forties that looks busy but stays small, a way to talk about calling while postponing obedience, and a way to live half-present in the present while telling yourself you’re being “wise.” This week on Win Today, Mark Batterson joins me to reclaim the middle decades as the beginning, not the end, and to confront why delayed obedience is still disobedience and why the slow, daily road of incremental growth produces what hurry never can. Mark will teach us the subtle drift that fragments attention, why “later” sounds prudent but hollows character, and how gradual progress—received as a gift and practiced as a rhythm—forms a durable life.

You’ll learn:

• Why “life begins at 40” can be more than a slogan, and how to build the next forty with intention.
• How being half-present in the present quietly erodes formation, and how to recover attention.
• Why delayed obedience is disobedience, and what immediate, faithful action looks like.
• How to fall in love with gradual progress instead of chasing sudden results.
• Practical rhythms for mid-life momentum that resist hurry and reward faithfulness.

Guest Bio

Mark Batterson is the lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C., and the New York Times–bestselling author of The Circle Maker and more than twenty books. He writes and teaches about courageous obedience, holy imagination, and the long game of spiritual formation. Today’s conversation isn’t about his résumé—it’s about your next act: recovering presence, refusing delay, and embracing the slow, durable gains that shape a life.

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Guest Links

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Resources Mentioned This Week

• Gradually Then Suddenly: How to Dream Bigger, Decide Better, and Leave a Lasting Legacy
• Healing What You Can’t Erase: Transform Your Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Health from the Inside Out

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